Antiprotozoal properties of Indonesian medicinal plant extracts

Abstract

Tithonia diversifolia, Cyclea barbata, Tinospora crispa, Arcangelisia flava, Pycnarrhena cauliflora are plants used in Indonesia for the traditional treatment of malaria. In the search for new antiparasitic drugs, the parts traditionally used of these 5 plants were extracted with various solvents and evaluated in vitro against Plasmodium falciparum but also against Babesia divergens and Leishmania infantum. Seven crude plant extracts out of 25 tested displayed high antimalarial activities with IC50 < 5 µg/ml and in the case of some of them an interesting selectivity regarding their cytotoxicity against mammalian cells. A. flava appeared to be the most promising antiplasmodial plant with the highest antiplasmodial activity (IC50 values less than 3 µg/ml) and the weakest cytotoxicity. By contrast, only P. cauliflora radix, through its dichloromethane and methanol extracts also demonstrated a high activity against L. infantum, with IC50 values around 3 µg/ml; their high selectivity index, especially on VERO cells, hypothesises a specific parasiticidal action. Moreover, for all the extracts showing antiplasmodial activity, a positive correlation was demonstrated with antibabesial activity, suggesting that these antiplasmodial extracts could be a potential source of antibabesial compounds. These preliminary results confirm the antiplasmodial interest of some of these plants used in traditional medicine but also their effects on leishmaniasis and babesiosis. Ongoing phytochemical investigations should allow identification of the chemical series responsible for these activities.

An updated and comprehensive review on the ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry, pharmacological activity and toxicological profile of Tinospora crispa (L.) Hook. f. & Thomson

“…In the South Kerala region of India, locals use the plant as an antidiabetic (Thomas et al 2016 ). The use of T. crispa as an antimalarial agent is widespread in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Southern Laos and the Republic of Guinea (Forman 1981 ; Ahmad and Ismail 2003 ; Bertani et al 2005 ; Elkington et al 2014 ; Ramadani et al 2018 ; Dapar 2020 ; Dapar et al 2020 ). Indonesians also employ the plant for hyperglycemia, inflammation, fever and rheumatism.…”

Cyclea barbata L. Miers.: Penggunaan tradisional, fitokimia, dan aktivitas farmakologi

“…Sampel bubuk C. barbata diekstraksi dengan maserasi dalam etanol 70% dan memiliki nilai IC50 > 50 μg/ml. Meskipun digunakan secara tradisional untuk mengobati malaria, namun ekstrak C. barbata tidak menunjukkan aktivitas antiplasmodial dari uji ini (Ramadani et al, 2018) Aktivitas antiplasmodial dari ekstrak alkaloid bisbenzylisoquinoline C. barbata diuji secara in vitro dengan metode penggabungan radioisotop. Alkaloid…”

Antiparasitic phytotherapy perspectives, scope and current development

“…16 . Ramadani et al 2017, demonstrated that dichloromethane and methanol fractions P. cauliflora (Menispermaceae) radix, have high activity against L. infantum, with IC50 values around 3 μg/ml; their high selectivity index, especially on VERO cells, hypothesises a specific parasiticidal action (26). Ahmed et al 2017, evaluated the antileishmanial capability of different extracts of Quercus dilatata Lindl, the evaluation of test extracts was carried out by employing MTT colorimetric assay and found the Ethyl acetate + Acetone and Acetone extracts exhibited remarkable and comparable leishmanicidic potential with IC 50 12.91 ± 0.02 μg/ ml and 14.40 ± 0.01 respectively and it was found to be absent in the polar extracts.…”

“…Smyrniotopoulos et al 2017, tested for in vitro antiprotozoal activity towards a small panel of parasites (Plasmodium falciparum, Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, T. cruzi, and Leishmania donovani) and cytotoxicity against mammalian primary cells the Irish brown alga Bifurcariabifurcata (Sargassaceae family).They observed highest activity was exerted against the malaria parasite P. falciparum (IC50 value 0.65 μg/mL) with low cytotoxicity (IC50 value 56.6 μg/mL) 19 . Ramadani et al 2017, found A. flava (Menispermaceae) highest antiplasmodial activity (IC50 values less than 3 μg/ml) and the weakest cytotoxicity (26). Vasquez-Ocmin et al 2018, report that the ethanolic extract from Costus curvibracteatus (Costaceae) leaves, Griasneuberthii (Lecythidaceae), Stachytarpheta cayennensis, and Alchornea triplinervia showed strong in vitro activity on P. falciparum (sensitive and resistant strain), suggesting that these activities could be attributed to the main arylpropanoid and iridoid constituents (verbas-coside, isoverbascoside and ipolamiide), of phenolic compounds in the plant leaves (9).…”

“…Natural products remain an interesting source of research for the discovery of new drugs to fight NTDs 9 . Several studies of crude plant extracts have already identified potential compounds to treat Chagas' disease, Leishmaniasis, Toxoplasmosis, Giardiasis, Malaria among other protozoan parasites [2][3][4][5][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] . Natural compounds of medicinal plants have shown lower toxicity together with higher specificity, creating an optimistic view of new treatments for diseases, since they contain countless molecules with a great variety of structures and pharmacological activities.…”